Tag Archives: lex orandi lex credendi

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Reading for an essay on the interrelationship of theology and worship I came across this gem and thought it worth sharing. It is a really fabulous illustration of Paul Ricoeur’s theory of symbolic meaning in language. If you’re familiar with a discussion on the place of worship in thinking theologically, or the distinctiveness of Anglican theology being mediated through our prayer books, this should be a really easy way into Ricoeur (who is definitely not easy!).

In a nutshell? Words have meaning beyond their exact dictionary definition. They take on subtle changes of meaning in different contexts – swear words being the classic example of that! The flat, surface definition of words are not unimportant – the latin words of lex orandi lex credendi are useless to me without a translation into English, but the words also take on a life of their own when used in a real conversation. I reckon it’s like they are let out of the school classroom into the yard for free play!

“‘Symbol gives rise to thought.’ First the giving, then the positing is crucial for the concerns of this essay. Lex orandi has the priority, lex credendi is essential but logically and ontologically derivative. The dialectical relationship between the two halves is intimate and pervasive. When we first become aware of ourselves as human beings we are already engaged in thinking about the symbols. Nevertheless, the order is crucial: first the giving, then the positing. It is this order which situates us individually and corporately within God, and not vice versa. It is this order which is expressive of the intrinsically Anselmic character of Christian faith: faith in search of understanding, understanding in search of an adequate articulation of the faith which undergirds it, which is turn alters what is received. It is within this process that Christian preaching finds its essential and indispensable role; and this process continues throughout the life of the individual and of the Church.

“For Anglicans, as for all Christians, this givenness of the sacred is manifested first and most fully in the symbols and mythic narratives which present the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth as he is remembered through the activity of the Holy Spirit in the Church. It is these given symbols and narratives which are enacted ritually, prayed, chanted and sung. They constitute the icons of the Christian faith. Meaning appears there, just in these symbols as they are assembled in narratives. It is these symbols and narratives which are central and determinative for Christian faith.

“Within the staggeringly complex world of symbols, everyone must begin from somewhere. Christians begin from the symbolic life of the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus as summarized in the Apostles’ Creed. This narrative is privileged. Other narratives and devotional practices, such as those associated with the lives of the saints, may be drawn into this privileged symbolic-narrative orbit. And, indeed, certain symbols and myths of other religions may be drawn into this orbit. In such instances, however, that which is received can only be received legitimately insofar as it is congruent with the privileged narrative of the Christ. It is from this given that positing proceeds, that the reflective articulation of faith begins.

“The privileged symbols and narratives of the Christ live most fundamentally within Scripture as it is remembered and prayed within the liturgical worship of the Church. The individual’s use of Scripture and prayer is dependent upon the more comprehensive experience of the Church. No Christian community or theology ever totally loses sight of the givenness of this dimension of Christian experience, and Anglicanism is most self-conscious and emphatic about it. It is this which provides the experiential and theoretical ground and thus the justification for Anglicanism’s insistence upon the primacy of liturgy and the Book of Common Prayer in the life of the church, together with its particular articulation of lex orandi, lex credendi.“

My first assignment for the session 2 unit on Worship and Liturgy takes it’s cue from this article by French Theologian and Roman Catholic Priest Paul DeClerck. Lex orandi lex credendi is a latin phrase that has framed the theological questions of liturgy since the 5th century: “the law of faith [is] the law of belief.” DeClerck notes that this works really differently in a time of change such as our present. In a time of stability it makes sense to say, ‘see how the church prays, and you will know what it believes.’ But in our time, “is it not in terms of certain new or renewed ideas that one intends to revise practices or texts which no longer, or badly correspond to them?” My present experiences of church worship seem to circle around the theme: ‘see how the church prays, and you will know how disconnected what they believe and how they behave really are!’ (Let alone how disconnected from everyday life and the ‘outside’ world.)

So DeClerck raises the question, how do we understand the relationship between theology (what we believe) and liturgy, or worship, in it’s broadest sense? Do we work out good doctrine and then re-write the prayer book? Do we research the historical witness of the church through it’s liturgies and re-write our doctrine? His answer is subtle. When the lex orandi lex credendi rule is applied too tightly from one end, it tends to be redressed too tightly from the other end. He illustrates by showing how Pope Pius XII did a complete backflip on a centuries old understanding of the adage in a 1950 encyclical which, from the middle ages to the twentieth century, was interpreted as “the rule of prayer determines the rule of belief” (or liturgy is a source of authority for the construction of theology). Pius XII was reacting against the kind of modernist definition of religion discussed here recently in relation to Schleiermacher. George Tyrrell was an English Roman Catholic arguing for an understanding of the christian liturgy as “begotten by a mysterious, abiding contact of the human soul with God; and the Creed is but the record of the gradual unravelling of the meaning of that experience through the collective spiritual labour of the Church, guided by the Spirit of Christ, into all truth.” Well, if that’s what your polemical partner is saying, the redress is to argue that no, Holy Mother Church is the keeper of the keys to all conceptions of god and She will determine therefore how and what we pray! (Sorry, please forgive my gen-X, anti-establishmentarianism.)

So, strangely, I am back to a familiar reddresstheology theme – we are emerging from a time in history where the pendulum swung one way too far (Enlightenment Humanism) then, I think, another way too far (Authoritarian Response from Inherited Church) so that what we need to do now is stop, take a deep breath, and find the middle ground. This is actually the exercise in liminal rationality that I wrote about in the liminality essay. The task is critique and where possible integration, where not possible, a willingness to leave uncertain, integrating each of the snippets of wisdom available to us on their own merits.

The importance of non-dichotomous thinking is really well demonstrated by deClerck in this law of prayer:law of belief maxim. He splendidly employs the language of this adage as an ‘avatar’ to describe the (Riceourian) way in which these words act as a kind of symbol. For non-science fiction and gaming fans, you will probably need to do what I did and grab a dictionary!

2a: an incarnation in human form b: an embodiment (as of a concept or philosophy) often in a person

3: a variant phase or version of a continuing basic entity

4: an electronic image that represents and is manipulated by a computer user (as in a computer game)

It’s the third meaning that DeClerck has in mind: lex orandi lex credendi is shorthand for a certain understanding of the connection between theology and worship. However, the blessing and curse of symbols is their slippery attachment to a definitive reference. Hence, over a couple of millenia, the meaning of the adage has the opportunity to get completely disconnected from it’s original intention. Herein lies my dilemma and the reason I am struggling to write an essay on this topic which needs to be submitted in 3 days! How do we determine the reference point for definition? Does there need to be a reference point for there to be any useful meaning in the avatar or is that just our addiction to Platonic epistemology? Why is the original meaning of the avatar the reference point for all other meanings, particularly when it involves complex historical argumentation to unearth it? And is there anything wrong with having more than one interpretation of an avatar anyway?

Postmodern approaches to epistemology have much more subtle ways of dealing with these questions and even though deClerck is essentially arguing for the primacy of the original meaning above other historical avatars, I think he is on to something with the swinging pendulum. There is usefulness in the notion that a definition does reach it’s limits. Concepts, words, thoughts, definitions – all these things are finite as human beings are finite. They are human constructions. Therefore an apophatic definition might be the best starting point. Apophatic just means ‘negative’ – we affirm what we do not know in order to define what we might know. I use the technical term deliberately to allude to Apophatic Theology, which is an ancient theological method, and it is no accident that Emerging Theologians are re-discovering it value in a fragmented culture.

How then, do I understand the adage itself: law of prayer:law of belief? Well, they are a complex, interdependent human mystery! Our heart, soul, mind and strength do not operate independently, though their relationship operates differently at different times and differently within different people. So yes, our prayers reflect what we actually believe in our deepest selves, but also what we are told to believe by our socialised self! Our theology reflects our conscious logic and careful considerations, but it also reflects our unconscious irrationalities and emotional motivations. The up side is that when theology and worship go together – it enables us to sing praise and love God with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength.

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red dress theology

Red Dress Theology is a blog, a life and a work of priestly scholarship by Chelle Trebilcock, journeying towards a way of Being that is unafraid of love. It accompanies a PhD project that is developed a theological hermeneutic for contexts of change through an engagement with Liminality Theory and Contemplative Theology and Spirituality, by re-examining what it means to LOVE.